


caught in the ropes and the wires

by mardisoir



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-11 20:47:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12943557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardisoir/pseuds/mardisoir
Summary: Grantaire wakes up on Christmas morning with a hangover, a bad back, and a criminal in his kitchen.





	caught in the ropes and the wires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thelittlelion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelittlelion/gifts).



He doesn’t actually wake up so much as surface into unpleasant consciousness, becoming aware first of the ache in his legs, cramped up on the too-short two-seater, the scratch of an itchy decorative pillow under his cheek, the warning throb of his lower back when he tries to turn over. 

His eyes are sore and crusted with sleep. When he cracks one open to check where he is, the uninspiring sight of his own messy apartment greets him, tilting like a punch-drunk merry-go-round. 

The noise that roused him sounds again: someone opening cupboard doors in the kitchen, the clink of cutlery on crockery. 

For a moment he thinks it might be Joly and Bossuet. That would explain why he’s on the couch, if they were sharing his bed. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d shouldered the burden of escorting him home. But on those nights, more often than not, the three of them pile into Grantaire’s bed together. And besides, he’s starting to remember. It can’t be them. They’re gone, visiting with Musichetta’s family. This is a holiday hangover.

Grantaire groans and presses his face deeper into the cushions. He doesn’t fall back to sleep but he drifts, still enough alcohol in his system that if he lays very still and breathes very lightly, he almost feels human.

It won’t last.

This is the golden hour, the last vestige of inebriation before the hangover truly kicks in. If he was a luckier man he’d have slept through all of this, woken in the early evening in time to eat something greasy and kill the queasiness with another drink.

The sensible thing to do would be to get up, drink some water, take some painkillers, and go get into his nice soft bed. Then perhaps he’d manage to sleep through the worst of the suffering.

The sensible thing would have been to not go drinking alone on Christmas Eve in the first place.

He’d done the friend thing first. They’d all gathered at Cosette and Marius’ apartment - because it’s the second biggest, but has a larger kitchen than Combeferre and Courfeyrac’s - where they’d had dinner and drinks and exchanged gifts, despite the agreement they’d made months ago not to buy any presents this year.

The whole evening had been tastefully festive and very grown-up. No more cheap tinsel staple-gunned to the mantelpiece, no ugly singing novelty jumpers, no cheap plastic menorah sunglasses, no liquor. Nothing to drink at all, besides mulled wine and some extremely questionable home-brewed spiced cider that Bahorel had insisted they all try.

Grantaire had left the party early with Éponine, who had to get home to her siblings. He’d walked her to the metro and even taken the train with her to her stop. She’d wished him happy holidays and hugged him goodbye and he’d gotten off at the next station over and headed straight for the nearest bar.

Where, apparently, he’d gotten completely obliterated and picked up a stranger.

Éponine lives in a pretty shitty area. He hopes whoever he brought home hasn’t robbed the place.

Whoever it is, they didn’t fuck, evidently. Grantaire has the distinctly grimy feeling of someone who slept in their clothes. He’s not wearing shoes though, small miracles, and there’s a blanket tangled around his feet where he must have kicked it off at some point in the night.

The door to the kitchen squeaks open and the wooden floorboards in the hall creak beneath unfamiliar footsteps. Grantaire hopes that if whoever’s here does plan to kill him, they’ll do it quietly for the sake of his aching head. 

“You look like shit.”

If the footsteps were unfamiliar, the voice is not. Against all likelihood, Montparnasse looks down at him with a steaming cup in his hands and a frown on his face.  
  
“There’s no food in your fridge.”

Grantaire’s voice gives out when he tries to answer and he coughs, eyes watering.

“Is that coffee?” he tries again, voice like gravel, and reaches a hopeful hand towards the drink.  
  
“Yes,” Montparnasse lifts the cup to his mouth and takes a long, loud sip.  
  
Grantaire lets his hand fall back to his side. “Ok then.”  
  
“There’s more in the kitchen. Which is empty of food.”  
  
Grantaire slowly levers himself upright into a sitting position, stomach lurching wildly. “I think there’s yoghurt-”

“I ate that already.”

“Oh. Well then yeah, that was it.”

He can feel Montparnasse watching him and it makes him want to cringe away. In the cold morning light filtering through the open shutters he feels exposed; Montparnasse’s presence has lifted the stone of his shameful existence and revealed the squirming, unsightly thing beneath.

It’s possible he’s still a little drunk.

“So, how much of last night do you remember?”

Grantaire just groans in response and scrubs his hands over his face, rubbing at the creased marks the cushion left there.

“Mm, I thought so,” the couch sinks as Montparnasse sits down next to him.  
  
“Were you at the bar?”  
  
“I found you there around one. You were pretty out of it.”

“Out of practice,” he agrees. Out of reasons to make better choices. “And you brought me home out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose?”

Montparnasse cradles his coffee in his lap, long fingers wrapped around the mug. He’s wearing what must be last night’s clothes, his outfit more rumpled than he’d usually allow. Beneath his shirt cuffs his wrists are startlingly delicate. The knuckles of his left hand are scabbed over. 

Grantaire drags his eyes back to his face.  
  
“You slept in my bed.”  
  
“You said I could stay,” Montparnasse shrugs but he’s studying Grantaire intently from the corner of his eye. “Getting you back here was enough work, I wasn’t going to drag your heavy ass off the couch once you’d decided to pass out there.”

Grantaire is not at peak capacity, what with the inside of his head feeling scoured with steel wool and the inside of his mouth masquerading as an ashtray, but he’s savvy enough to know better than to challenge that story. They’re both alive and mostly unscathed and while it’s utterly bizarre to him that Montparnasse is in his home, he’s too tired to question it.

Grantaire first met Montparnasse in a different bar, years ago. Too many years, he thinks, not for the first time, glancing at the smooth curve of Montparnasse’s jawline as he sips his coffee. He’d said nothing then, wrapped up in his own selfish reasons for being there, and kept his silence throughout their encounters since. Nothing in Montparnasse’s demeanour would suggest he’d welcomed being questioned on that or any other personal matter, and besides. Grantaire tries not to judge. 

He also tries, mostly, to stay out of other people’s business, particularly when that business could get him into trouble.

Montparnasse is nothing if not trouble.

“No holiday plans?” he ventures, hoping to get some idea of how long his unexpected guest might be sticking around for.

“No.”  
  
They sink into silence. Grantaire wonders absently if he’s spent time around Montparnasse sober before. It seems unlikely.  
  
“You didn’t ask if I have plans,” he realises.  
  
Montparnasse shifts in place like an unsettled cat. “You mentioned last night that you don’t.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Great. So he’d spilled his guts, hopefully only metaphorically, and come across as so entirely pathetic that one of the most self-involved people he’s ever met felt the need to walk him home. That’s not mortifying at all. 

Grantaire searches for the right words to get across: thanks for the assist, but I’d like to curl up into a ball of humiliation and regret now and stay that way until January, and you might not want to be here for that.

“You don’t have to stay,” he says, in the end.  
  
“Do you want me to go?”  
  
Montparnasse looks wary again and Grantaire doesn’t know if he’ll be more alarmed by an invitation to stay or a suggestion that he leave, so he just half shrugs, half gestures uselessly.

“You said there was coffee?”

Montparnasse’s shoulders relax a fraction, “Yes. In the cafetière.”

“Right.” 

That seems a good place as any to start. Grantaire levers himself up, nearly tripping over the discarded blanket, and flees.  
  
Montparnasse stays.

When Grantaire ventures back out of the kitchen he’s settled deeper into the couch cushions, looking perfectly at home as he flicks through the meagre offerings on Grantaire’s television. He flips between the news and a choir singing hymns before settling on a re-run of _Le père Noël à les yeux bleus._

Grantaire hovers in the doorway and watches.

It’s a beautiful day outside, golden and clear. He’d cracked open the kitchen window while he drank his first cup of coffee, alternating the bitter brew with breaths of sharp wintery air. Between the two he’s feeling vaguely more alert but no less bemused.

“You didn’t tell me why,” Montparnasse speaks without turning and apropos of nothing.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Why you don’t have plans.”

Grantaire’s stomach churns. Having to come up with an explanation is somehow worse than the drunken confession he thought he’d made. He procrastinates, perching on the edge of the second, less comfortable chair and busying himself blowing on his third cup of coffee.

“Just had nothing on this year.”

“Really,” Montparnasse finally looks over at him, eyes narrowed.

Grantaire hums, a non-answer.

Montparnasse crosses one ankle over the other and regards him with an inscrutable expression, tapping his fingers absently on the remote he’s still holding.  


“I was surprised to run into you last night.”  
  
It has been a while since he was last out drinking alone, to excess, in places where Montparnasse might be found. Feels like no time’s passed at all though in a lot of ways; the woozy nausea of overindulgence a banal morning accompaniment.

“I thought you’d be off with your little friends, Éponine said she was going to some party.”

“Yeah. That was- before.”  
  
On the television screen Daniel and his friends smoke and gossip in a café. Grantaire hasn’t watched this film in a few years, it’s still unexpectedly jarring seeing people smoking inside.  
  
“I thought you might be spending today with them too.”  


So had Grantaire.  


Joly and Bossuet told him way back in September that they were going down to Bordeaux for the holidays. They’d been apologetic about it, aware of the fact that they were breaking a five year tradition, but Grantaire had been happy for them and Musichetta, for what it meant for their relationship, and he wasn’t so codependent that he’d begged for an invitation to go with them.  
  
Five years of easy, casual Christmases with his friends had lulled him into contented complacency. The sudden threat of a holiday spent alone filled Grantaire with dread, but December still seemed a long way off; two and a half months left to find something to do, someone to inflict his company on.  
  
Grantaire’s an adult. He’s well aware that if he’d just asked, most of his friends would have included him in their plans. But, and this is the worst part, the part that makes him want to disappear under Montparnasse’s intense scrutiny, he’d kind of thought that someone might ask _him_. 

They didn’t though, and any time Christmas or Chanukah or Festivus came up it rapidly became clear that none of them really have space in their lives for a tag-along. And then it was too late to ask without making himself look pathetic and his friends feel guilty, and besides, pity invites are worse than no invites at all.  
  
He’s a grown man, he doesn’t need coddling. He’s lucky to have the friends he has, and he knows it, it just chafes a little knowing he doesn’t mean as much to them as they do to him. Or, maybe that’s not fair. Perhaps they just don’t think about him as much as he thinks about them. He’s not a factor to consider when planning ahead, thinking about the future.  
  
That might actually be worse, it occurs to him now, one foot jiggling compulsively as he avoids making eye contact.

And so: the party. The bar. Montparnasse staring at him like he’s a particularly repulsive specimen of insect whose wings he’s considering plucking off. 

“They’re busy.” Grantaire drains the dregs of his coffee and sets the cup down too heavily on the table, “I need to shower.”

He flees again.

The shower helps. Grantaire cranks the temperature up and stands under the spray, face tilted up so the water can wash away the grime of the night before, turning to let it sluice over his stiff shoulders. It feels almost routine, the steam and heat clearing his head more than any amount of coffee could.  
  
By the time he’s washed his hair and brushed his teeth - spitting toothpaste down the plughole at his feet, a habit he’s had since childhood and can’t shake - Grantaire almost feels like a new man. 

He’s expecting to come out of the bathroom and find that Montparnasse has vanished, like the lingering impression of a dream or the world’s weirdest one night stand, but he’s still on the couch watching as Grantaire sneaks past, towel around his waist and dirty clothes in hand. 

It’s like having a wild animal in your home, he thinks nonsensically, slipping into his bedroom and leaning up against the closed door. A thing with sharp teeth pretending at being tame.

The bed isn’t made, the covers shoved back and pillows out of place. Grantaire wonders if the sheets smell of Montparnasse now, like cheap cigarettes and expensive cologne.

He shoves his dirty clothes in the laundry basket and throws on sweatpants, a paint stained t-shirt, thick socks. Montparnasse can turn his nose up if he likes, but it’s the holidays and he’s still feeling faintly nauseous, he wants to be cosy.

He pauses by the bed and runs his fingers over the mattress, somehow surprised to find that the sheets are cold.  
  
Deodorant, a comb through his hair. Grantaire scratches lightly at the stubble on his jaw, maybe he should have shaved. He’s just dawdling now, hiding in his bedroom like an antisocial teenager when family comes over to visit.

“I’m starving,” Montparnasse announces when he emerges. “What were you planning to eat today, plain yoghurt and stale toast?”

“We can order something,” Grantaire offers feeling absurdly abashed, like he’s being a bad host.

He knows that some part of him wants Montparnasse to stay. Better the company of wolves than sitting alone in his empty apartment.

“Chinese,” Montparnasse says, attention fixed on the television that’s now showing Simpsons re-runs. “That’s traditional, right?”

“Uh, sure.”  
  
There’s a menu in one of the drawers in the kitchen. Grantaire fishes it out and frowns at the opening hours, it says nothing about holidays.  
  
“What do you want?” he asks, wandering back through to look for his phone.  
  
It’s on the coffee table, nearly out of battery. There’s a text from Éponine timestamped at ten pm last night, checking if he made it home alright. Another from Joly to say they’d gotten to Bordeaux safely from this morning.  
  
“You choose,” Montparnasse shrugs. “I’ll eat anything.”  
  
Grantaire wonders for a minute at this idiosyncrasy. Montparnasse is so discerning about certain things; how he dresses, the way he speaks. He’d expected him to be a fussy eater.  
  
Something about it makes him think of Gavroche, Éponine’s little brother, and the way he’ll pick up unfinished food from abandoned plates in cafés if she doesn’t catch him in time. He never seems chastened when she scolds him for it, just shrugs in that same way and points out that the food’s still good.

Grantaire retreats to the kitchen to phone the order in, picking things at random in the hope that there’ll be something in the mix that Montparnasse will like. He orders too much, but that’s fine. There’ll be leftovers.

The week stretches ahead of him, empty days with no work, no friends, just cold greasy noodles and Netflix until the inevitable disappointment that will be New Year’s Eve. Maybe he’ll get lucky and Montparnasse will stick around, reheating potstickers in the microwave and hanging out on the couch with him.

Grantaire snorts at that mental image.

There’s a mostly full bottle of Jim Beam in the cupboard under the sink, the only one to escape the purge of a few months ago. Grantaire had kept it ostensibly because it would be a waste to throw it out, but really it’s been something like a security blanket. Knowing it was there, waiting for him at home, made it easier to skip the temptation of cheap drinks out elsewhere. 

He unscrews the cap slowly and sloshes a measure into a clean-ish glass from the drying rack, goes to join Montparnasse in staring at the tv. 

The food arrives quickly and they both seem grateful for the interruption. 

Grantaire pays and tips the delivery guy generously. Montparnasse doesn’t offer to chip in but he does help unpack the bags onto the coffee table, eyebrows raised as he surveys the spread.  
  
“Are we expecting company?”  
  
“You said you were hungry.”  
  
Grantaire goes to get plates and cutlery from the kitchen. When he comes back Montparnasse is already digging into a carton of egg fried rice with a set of chopsticks, somehow managing not to drop anything on his lap the way Grantaire would be if he tried that. He sets the plates down and goes back for the whiskey.  
  
They eat quietly, the Simpsons giving way to Disney on the television in front of them. The food is good, that and the alcohol chasing the last lingering edge of Grantaire’s hangover away.

Montparnasse helps himself to the bourbon, stealing sips from Grantaire’s glass at first before he gets him his own.

“So, this is it, huh,” he drawls when they’ve both cleared their plates a few times.

“What’s that?” Grantaire asks, licking sweet and sour sauce off his thumb.  
  
“Your holiday plans? Liquor, shit tv and takeout?”  
  
Grantaire’s not sure that Toy Story counts as shit tv, but he’s too full and sated to argue the point. He kind of wants to nap but Montparnasse is still there, cross legged on the couch beside him.  
  
“I’m sorry, are you judging me?”

He almost says something about not being too good to eat the free food, but that probably wouldn’t go down well, and he thinks Montparnasse is actually teasing. Possibly. Unless he’s misread the situation.

“No, no. No judgement here,” Montparnasse says, judgementally. “Brings back many a fond childhood memory.”  
  
Montparnasse couches sincerity in sarcasm, but Grantaire’s not going to call him on it. Not when it’s a tell he knows by heart.

“For your information,” he says instead, swirling the last finger of booze carelessly in its fingerprint smeared glass, “this is not it. I was also planning to play video games.”  
  
“Wow.”  


“Yup. And since you’re being a little shit about it, I’m picking something single player.”  
  
“Tragic.” 

When he smiles like that - wide and slightly crooked, like he’s genuinely amused - Montparnasse looks his age. 

They’re several drinks into the bottle and the stark awkwardness of the morning has mostly worn off. Montparnasse has made no suggestion of leaving and Grantaire has to wonder how much of the strange tension was- not fear, but worry that he might turn him out onto the quiet city streets. 

He’s less intense tipsy, and that’s another surprising discovery. Grantaire hadn’t imagined that his edges could be sharper than they usually are.

“I used to love this time of year.” 

Grantaire blinks at him but Montparnasse is distracted, curled in on himself, the rim of his glass pressed against his bottom lip as he speaks. “The lights, the anticipation. Everyone rushing around all excited like they’re preparing for some big performance.”  
  
“I hated it,” Grantaire says when he falls silent again. “It always felt so fake. All this build up, for what? A few days spent with people who hate each other, resentment over spending too much money or not enough, it’s bullshit. People fall for it every year, thinking it’s gonna be like the adverts.”  
  
“Holidays are unreal,” Montparnasse nods slowly, eyes glassy from the whiskey. “Liminal. The rest of the year everyone’s busy living normal lives, but it’s like the rules don’t apply at Christmas. I liked that.”  
  
Grantaire can relate on the liminal thing, the entire day has felt that way. Like he’s dissociating, watching events happen from a step outside of himself. Even now, having this conversation seems like something he might have dreamt up.  
  
It’s possibly the most personal exchange he and Montparnasse have ever had, the only other thing that’s come close was when they’d shared vague, intoxicated commiserations about past relationships at a party a few years ago.  
  
Grantaire had almost thought something might happen between them that night, but Montparnasse had drifted away from him, found someone else to go home with. Someone better.  
  
“What changed?” he asks, mostly out of morbid curiosity but also wanting to prolong this weird moment, their tenuous connection. 

“I did, I suppose. I grew up. Realised none of it would ever be for me, no matter how bright the lights were. I’d always be on the outside looking in.”

He sounds so matter-of-fact, it hits Grantaire square in the diaphragm. He feels like an asshole.  
  
Montparnasse has always been something of a mystery, one he’s wary of solving. Grantaire knows his reputation, knows from the few things he’s learned from Éponine that it’s probably well earned. Whatever his holidays were like before this one, he has a suspicion that spending a few days aloneeating leftover chow mein was probably the least of his worries.

He’s not really thinking when he tucks his arm around Montparnasse’s shoulders, just feeling sad and kind of useless and wanting to offer the meagre comfort of physical contact. They’re sitting closer than they have all day, thighs almost touching, and it’s the proximity, probably, that makes him do it; muscle memory from curling up on this same couch with Joly and Bossuet and sometimes Prouvaire. 

He freezes up when he realises what he’s done, the thoughtless liberty he’s taken, but Montparnasse is agreeably pliant under his touch, leaning against his side easily like he’s seeking warmth.

It’s quiet in the apartment, the sound of the metro passing outside is unusually loud without the normal traffic noise. Montparnasse sips at his drink then leans forward to put his glass on the coffee table, and in the same smooth movement slides off the couch and onto his knees at Grantaire’s feet.  
  
Grantaire startles, “What are you doing?”  


The afternoon sunlight slanting through the window picks out the dust motes floating in the air, lights up the gold tones of the bourbon in Grantaire’s glass. The same colour glints in Montparnasse’s dark eyes when he looks up at him.

“What does it look like?”

His mouth is red and wet and his hands are sliding up Grantaire’s thighs.

“You don’t have to-”

Montparnasse smirks and leans in, palming him roughly through his sweatpants. Grantaire didn’t put boxers on earlier and he’s regretting that now. He feels suspended in the moment, like something caught in amber, like the dust drifting in front of the window. Montparnasse slips the fingers of one hand under the hem of his t-shirt and the touch of skin on skin shocks him out of it.

He grabs Montparnasse’s wrist, “Stop.”  
  
Montparnasse jolts back and Grantaire lets go immediately. 

“Jesus, what?”

Grantaire flounders, his cheeks are hot and he’s embarrassingly hard already. Montparnasse is still on his knees, which doesn’t help.

“I don’t… expect anything from you. You get that, right?”

Montparnasse’s face is blank, edging on suspicious, and it’s clear that he doesn’t, in fact, get that.

“You don’t, like, owe me anything.”

For letting you stay, he doesn’t add. For the food. It’s implied, and he’s not proud of that, but he wants to be clear.

Montparnasse rolls his eyes. “It’s just a blowjob, R.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Are you saying you don’t want me to suck you off?”

The lie he should be telling sticks behind his teeth. He hesitates too long and Montparnasse looks bored with the whole idea.

“Whatever,” he uncoils gracefully to his feet. “Forget it. I’m going to use your shower.”

Grantaire almost expects him to slam the bathroom door behind him, but he doesn’t.

Thirty minutes later, Montparnasse is still in there.

Grantaire’s cleared away the food, drunk another glass of whiskey and then three of water when that suddenly seemed like a bad idea.

He keeps replaying the same few seconds in his head: Montparnasse’s hands on him, the fall of hair across his forehead, the twist in Grantaire’s stomach when he went to his knees.

The shower turns off and Grantaire looks towards the bathroom automatically. The door is cracked open, like an invitation. He’s been ignoring it.  
  
Montparnasse’s leather jacket is slung over the back of his desk chair in the corner of the room. He doesn’t have anything to wear, no soft, clean clothes to change into. Maybe he’ll want to leave now, but if he doesn’t Grantaire should offer him something.

In his bedroom he picks through his bureau, pulls out a t-shirt and some silk pyjama trousers he thinks might actually belong to Jehan. He hesitates over underwear before adding them to pile, shoving them in the middle, in between the rest of the clothes.

Montparnasse is still in the bathroom, Grantaire taps at the open door with his knuckles.

“Come in.”

“I brought you some clothes,” he keeps his eyes fixed at chest height and above. 

“Thanks.”

It’s steamy and claustrophobic in the small room. Grantaire sets the things down on the closed toilet lid and turns to go, but something catches his attention.  
  
Montparnasse is at the sink, Grantaire’s one spare towel wrapped loosely around his hips. That’s distracting, but not enough that he doesn’t notice the dark bruises spreading like ink in water from his left hip up over his ribcage.

“Shit, what happened?”

Montparnasse looks genuinely thrown for a minute, like he’s honestly forgotten that his side looks like roadkill.

“Oh,” he rests a hand protectively on his stomach, over the deepest mark that looks sickeningly boot-shaped. “Nothing. Minor incident.”

“Is that a joke?” Grantaire’s at his side before he can think about it. “Are your ribs broken? Can you breathe properly?”  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
Montparnasse seems oddly charmed by Grantaire’s concern and for a moment he wonders if it’s some kind of ploy, but the bruises are real, blood-warm beneath his cautious fingertips.

“When did this happen?” he’s gentle as he rests the flat of his hand against Montparnasse’s ribs, feeling for fractures.

“Night before last,” Montparnasse leans back against the sink, letting Grantaire check him over without complaint.  
  
He wants to ask if this has anything to do with why he’s here, in Grantaire’s apartment. If he’s hiding from someone, or laying low. It sounds faintly ridiculous though, and Montparnasse would probably lie anyway, so he doesn’t.  
  
“I don’t think anything’s broken.”  
  
“Yeah,” Montparnasse smiles and Grantaire’s breath catches, they’re standing very close. “I know.”  
  
“I’ve got some bruise stuff- I don’t suppose you put ice on them when it happened?”  
  
“No.”  
  
He turns around to look over the shelves near the window for the tube of bruise cream he uses when he gets belted a little too hard at the gym.  
  
“Here,” he offers it to Montparnasse.  
  
“Would you do it?” he asks, perching on the counter. “It’s hard to see myself, and you don’t have a mirror in here.”

There is a mirror, a small magnifying one Grantaire uses for shaving. He doesn’t like having bigger ones around. It’s easier to avoid his reflection when he’s not conscious of the fact that he’s doing it.

That means there’s no excuse not to help and he can feel his heart in his throat when he steps in close, Montparnasse loosening the towel at his hips so he can see where the bruising creeps down onto the top of his thigh.  
  
He starts there, thinking it will be easier to get that over with first. It’s not. Montparnasse’s skin is warm under his hands, and it would have been better to just use one, less intimate, but he wanted to warm the cream up in his palms first. Another mistake.  
  
Grantaire works as quickly as he can without rushing, he doesn’t want to press to hard or rub too harshly.  


Montparnasse leans back so he can see, brings one hand up to rest on Grantaire’s shoulder. They’re even closer now, and Grantaire can feel the subtle rise and fall of his chest beneath his fingers as he smooths the last of the cream in.  
  
The air between them is thick and heavy. Montparnasse had his hand on Grantaire’s cock earlier, but this feels like more, somehow. His lips are parted, wet hair a dark tangle shoved behind his ears. Grantaire wants to kiss him.

This is not something they’ve been dancing around, that was bound to happen eventually. Not to Grantaire’s knowledge. He can’t say its not something he’s ever thought about, but it’s always been in the hypothetical.

Hypothetically, he thinks Montparnasse is beautiful. Hypothetically, Grantaire has wondered what it would be like to strip him of his expensive clothes, to bite at his mouth, muss his hair, press his own bruises into the skin of his hips.

Fantasies, half-formed and usually half-drunk. Rarities, reserved for when they crossed paths in the darkest corners of already dark bars.

This - Montparnasse unflatteringly lit and awkwardly exposed beneath the fluorescence of the cheap bathroom strip light, smelling like medicinal ointment and Grantaire’s shampoo, shadows beneath his eyes and between the hollows of his ribs - this had never been part of the fantasy.

He only catches himself leaning in when he sees Montparnasse’s eyes light up with triumph.  
  
“I’ll let you get dressed,” he mutters, wiping his hands off on his thighs and slipping out of the room.

Back on the couch Grantaire can almost pretend like nothing’s happened, but he keeps getting stuck on how different Montparnasse looks in his clothes, without the perpetual smirk, the eyeliner, the leather jacket. 

He’s skinnier out of it; Grantaire’s borrowed shirt is loose around his shoulders, slipping low over his collar bones. He’s got his legs pulled up as he watches the television, arms wrapped loosely around them. His elbows are unexpectedly knobbly. 

Grantaire’s staring at the way Montparnasse’s hair curls against the nape of his neck when he looks over, sensing eyes on him. Montparnasse shifts instantly under his gaze, face going sly and knowing. He leans back so he’s arranged alluringly against the cushions, resting one arm along the back of the couch.

Grantaire liked him better the way he was before. Unselfconscious. Comfortable.

“I’ve been thinking,” Montparnasse says, looking at him from beneath his eyelashes. “You should get a pet. A cat or something.”

“Why would I get a cat.”

“They’re good company,” he stretches one leg across the unspoken divide in the middle of the couch, bony ankle bumping up against Grantaire’s knee with practiced nonchalance. “Good for lonely people.”

“Fuck you.”

Grantaire watches him lounging against the cushions and wonders if he’s lonely too. It seems like too much of a stretch now to believe that Montparnasse ran into him by accident. That he was just doing a friend a favour when he brought him home. He won’t know, unless Montparnasse chooses to tell him. Those memories are a wine soaked blur. Still, Grantaire’s grateful that he’s here, even if it’s only because he had nowhere else to go.

He’s not sure how much of that shows in his face, but Montparnasse grins at him.

“You can, you know.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Fuck me.”  
  
He’s in Grantaire’s lap before he can blink.  
  
“I thought you didn’t want me, before,” he says, pressed up against Grantaire’s chest with his hands back on his shoulders. “That pissed me off.”  
  
“Sorry?” Grantaire apologises, his hands fluttering awkwardly over Montparnasse’s hips.  
  
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t offer to blow just anyone, even as a thank you.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“It’s insulting.”  
  
“I,” Grantaire swallows and his throat clicks. He’s on the back-foot, has been all day. Montparnasse throws him off balance: too young, too good looking, too high contrast. He feels like a smudge of a person beside him.  
  
But this Montparnasse, bruised and soft at the edges, wearing Grantaire’s clothes, making himself at home in every corner of Grantaire’s life - this is something new.

“I’m not sure I understand what’s happening.”

“I want you to fuck me.”

“Why?”  
  
He shrugs. “Why not?”  
  
“Why _now_.”  
  
“It’s Christmas?” Montparnasse offers, winding his fingers into Grantaire’s hair. “Why does it matter? Christ. I knew I should have just gotten you drunk again.”  
  
“I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not.”  
  
“What’s a joke is that I’m practically begging you to take me to bed, and you’re sitting there doing nothing about it.”  
  
He’s starting to look genuinely annoyed and the sudden panic that he might stand up and walk away again finally makes this feel real.  
  
“You really want this. Me.”  
  
“ _Yes_.”

Well. Alright then.

Grantaire’s showing off when he scoops Montparnasse up with him when he stands, hitching his legs around his waist. His back’s still not right from the night on the couch but it’s only a few steps to the bedroom, and the shocked little noise Montparnasse makes is worth the effort.

He sets him down once they’re through the door and Montparnasse makes short work of stripping his shirt off. Grantaire doesn’t think much of his face but he’s got a nice enough body, and Montparnasse seems to concur, blunt nails dragging down his chest to push his sweatpants off his hips.

He steps back to kick them off, taking his socks with them as he does, and when he looks up Montparnasse is naked and laid out on his bed, exactly the way he’d tried not to picture earlier.

“Fuck.”  
  
“That’s the plan,” Montparnasse smirks, beckoning him over with one crooked finger.  
  
Grantaire crawls onto the bed and over to him. There’s lube and condoms in the top drawer of the bedside table, buried under an A5 sketchpad and a tangle of spare headphones, and he leans over to pick them out.

Montparnasse has his knees drawn up, arms arranged alluringly over his head, toying with the metal of the bedframe. Grantaire forces himself not to hesitate when he reaches for him, reminds himself that he’s already touched him once today, felt the heat of his skin under his fingers. It shouldn’t be a revelation, but it still is, the spill of his hair across the pillows, his cock flushed and leaking against his belly, the curl of his lip as he waits.  
  
Grantaire rests one hand on the softness of Montparnasse’s inner thigh, the other inexpertly uncapping the lube.

“Condom,” Montparnasse snaps, batting his hands away. 

Grantaire waves the bottle, “I was going to-”  
  
“I already took care of that,” he smiles and tilts his hips invitingly.  
  
“I- you did? When?”  
  
“What did you think I was doing in the bathroom?”

Grantaire sets the lube aside on the table by the bed, wondering distantly just how long Montparnasse has had this little seduction planned for. Since last night? Since what happened on the couch? Longer?

Grantaire likes foreplay. He likes the closeness of it, the intimacy of touching someone, watching their face, measuring their reactions. Fucking is great, but there’s something about seeing someone fall apart under his hands that makes him dizzy with want.

But if Montparnasse doesn’t want that, it’s fine. Maybe he doesn’t like it. It’s a lot, with someone you’ve never slept with before. A lot of trust. 

Grantaire doesn’t want to do anything Montparnasse doesn't like, doesn’t want to push him. Doesn’t want to think too much about it, either. The possibility that he’d thought it was necessary to do it himself, like maybe he wasn’t used to other people wanting to, or bothering to.

“Whatever you want.”

Montparnasse looks at him askance at that, smiling like he’s said something funny. Grantaire traces the edge of the bruise that arcs over his sharp hipbone with a wince and Montparnasse makes a disgruntled sound, leaning over to retrieve his shirt from where he’d dropped it.  
  
“What’re you doing?”  
  
“It’s fine, you don’t have to look at them.”  
  
“No, that’s not-” Grantaire stills his hands gently. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Not particularly.”

Grantaire frowns, unconvinced, and Montparnasse sighs.  
  
“Here,” he sits up, forcing Grantaire back onto his heels. “This is easier.”  
  
Montparnasse rolls over onto elbows and knees, his back a long stretch of mostly unblemished skin that Grantaire can't resist smoothing his hands over.  
  
“Get on with it,” Montparnasse groans, half muffled into the pillows.

“Bossy,” he murmurs approvingly, trying not to fumble as he opens the slippery condom packet.

Grantaire knows theres no lube hiding in his bathroom cabinets, so he’s generous with it, resolves to take things slow.  


“Would you hurry up,” Montparnasse hisses, snapping his hips as Grantaire rubs against him.  
  
They haven’t even kissed yet, he thinks, using his knees to spread Montparnasse’s legs wider, tipping him off balance just slightly. He rocks back hard, pushy even now, and they both gasp as Grantaire sinks into him.    
  
Montparnasse is a demanding presence in bed, squirming beneath him, trying to force the pace into something harsh and brutal. Grantaire crowds him down against the mattress, rolls his hips steady and even until they're both sweating. Montparnasse whines and swears and presses his face against the sheets. He feels small beneath Grantaire’s weight, even if he is all lean muscle and hidden strength. When Grantaire catches his hands, pressing them still, he links their fingers together tenderly.   
  
They speed up, Montparnasse gasping a breathless _finally._ Grantaire shifts one hand to his hip to hold him steady and that’s where things fall apart.  
  
Montparnasse yelps, a not happy sound, and Grantaire stills immediately. He's holding down hard on his bruised side.  


“Oh, shit. Fuck, sorry, are you alright?”  


“Fine, I'm fine, don't stop.”

Montparnasse’s hip is swollen and painful to look at. Grantaire remembers his own misplaced desire to bruise, to leave marks on him, and feels faintly sick.

“R,” Montparnasse moans, wiggling his hips, trying to get him to move, but Grantaire is pulling out, one hand hovering gingerly over his side.  


“What are you _doing_ ,” Montparnasse growls, flopping over onto his back.  


He’s still hard, Grantaire notices with a surge of relief. Either it really didn't hurt that badly, or it did but he liked it.

“I hurt you,” he runs one hand through his sweat damp hair distractedly, “I don’t want to do that.”

Montparnasse stares at him like he’s never seen him before.  
  
“Fine,” he says after a moment. “Move.”  
  
Grantaire lets himself be pushed around, repositioned until he’s leaning back against the headboard, then Montparnasse climbs into his lap.  
  
“You’re a very strange man,” he says, sinking back down on Grantaire’s cock.  
  
Montparnasse rides him at a fast clip, head thrown back and nails digging into his shoulders. He’s just as beautiful like this as Grantaire imagined he would be, lips parted and eyelashes wet. Grantaire bites at his throat, nuzzles at the corner of his jaw whispering words of praise, sweet and dirty in equal measure.  
  
Montparnasse tires eventually, thighs shaking beneath Grantaire’s hands. He’s slid his arms around Grantaire’s neck at some point, leaning in close and panting wetly against his ear. It’s strangely endearing. Grantaire still wants to kiss him.  
  
Instead he tips him back against the bed, takes control of the pace again, fucking him slow and deep until he’s biting down hard on the back of his hand to hold in desperate whimpers, tilting his hips up for it eagerly. It’s different now they’re face to face. Grantaire keeps his hands clenched safely in the sheets on either side of Montparnasse’s head so he wont grab at him too roughly again.  
  
“Touch yourself,” he orders, and Montparnasse hurries to obey, his other hand fisting tight in Grantaire’s hair and yanking him down into a filthy, open mouthed kiss. When he bites down hard on Grantaire’s bottom lip the sharp pain of it tips him over the edge, Montparnasse following hot and wet against Grantaire’s chest.

Grantaire rolls off of him straight away, although he wants to collapse face down and just feel Montparnasse against him. The bruises though, he thinks. He should be more careful. 

Montparnasse studies him appraisingly, head propped up on one hand.  
  
“We should do that again.”  
  
Grantaire laughs, one arm slung over his face, still catching his breath. “Sure, just give me a minute.”

He hadn’t expected Montparnasse to be a cuddler, but he drapes himself over Grantaire and seems perfectly content to stay there, pulling the covers up when they start to get cold.

They fuck again, then take a break to eat cold spring rolls in bed. It’s already dark outside, the city lights refracting like crystal in the reflection of the window.

Grantaire strokes Montparnasse’s back, tugs gently at his messy hair. 

“Do you have somewhere else to be?” he asks.  
  
Montparnasse tenses under his hands, a gleam that looks alarmingly like hurt flashing in his eyes.  
  
“Fuck, fine. I can take a hint,” he throws the blankets off, looking around for his clothes.

“Wait, no. Shit. That’s not what I meant-”  
  
Montparnasse snatches a shirt off the floor that could belong to either of them and glares at him, distractingly naked in the middle of his bedroom. “What did you mean, then?”  
  
“Just- god. Sorry. Never mind.” Grantaire hides his face in his hands, he can’t believe he’s already fucked this up.  
  
“What?” Montparnasse asks, coming back towards the bed.  
  
“I just thought,” he sighs, sitting up. “If you don’t have to be anywhere,” he carries on, quiet and a little resigned, “maybe you could stay.”  
  
“The night?”  
  
“Tonight. Tomorrow. I don’t know, whatever you want. It’s just me here, doing nothing until the thirty-first.” He ventures a smile, “You can take the bed.”  
  
Montparnasse narrows his eyes suspiciously, “You want me to stay.”  
  
“Only if you want to.”

“For the holidays.”  
  
Grantaire shrugs.  
  
Montparnasse stares like he’s trying to pick apart the very fibres of Grantaire’s being. This was a mistake. Of course he has somewhere else to be, today was just- a fluke. Satisfying a curiosity and scratching an itch at the same time, there’s no way that Montparnasse would actually want to-  
  
“Ok,” he says, tossing the shirt aside and sitting back down on the bed.  
  
“Ok?”  
  
“Yes,” he slides under the covers, plasters himself against Grantaire’s side. “I’ll stay.”

“Oh. Good.”  
  
“One condition though,” he rests the sharp point of his chin on Grantaire’s chest.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“We’re going shopping tomorrow, I’m not eating takeout all week.”  
  
Grantaire grins, “Yeah, we can do that.”  
  
“One other thing,” Montparnasse adds, and he leans in and kisses him.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Winter Bones by Stars.


End file.
